


never said no

by dreamsleep



Category: Secret Circle (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, TSC integrated into TVD!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsleep/pseuds/dreamsleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Melissa Glaser and Elijah Mikaelson talked about her possibly becoming a vampire, and the one time it didn't matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never said no

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic where TSC has been integrated into the TVD universe, combining both mythologies in ways that I thought were a good idea. This is also the first and only time I have written something from Elijah's point of view.

i.

The first time he asked her about it, it was a test.  
  
They were quite an unusual pair, sitting in this little out of the way cafe. The owner was easy enough to charm into letting them sit alone outside, where there was little chance they would be overheard. (He knew there was sage in her bag, had smelled it on her when she had walked down the street. It was not a fitting smell for her.) The tea was tolerable for this part of the world, but offered a lovely view of the nearby park. The location was really for her benefit more than it was for his. They could have done this in a dark room underground somewhere, but that would have defeated the purpose: he did not want to frighten her. Fear made people irrational, and easily malleable. His brother could use that to his advantage if he wished; he preferred people of a more independent and intelligent sort.  
  
If she was a hindrance or an enemy, he would not let her leave this cafe. His brother already had two witches at his beck and call, willing to do whatever he asked. He could not be allowed to have another.  
  
But if she was not aligned with his brother, she could be of some use to him. That was certainly one point he would allow her, other than the fact that her death would need to be handled carefully (if it came to that). She was too important to his brother’s witches, and her death would either send them deeper into dark magic, or pull them back. He had no way of knowing which would be  
  
Hence why she lived.  
  
“I could offer you something that no one else can,” was his final gambit. He turned his hand palm up onto the table, flexed his wrist to expose a vein. He watched as her eyes followed the movement, her throat constricting and then relaxing as she swallowed. “Immortality in exchange for your service.”  
  
She was silent for a long time, her eyes never leaving his wrist. He made no movement to hide it, watched as her thoughts crossed over her face. She was considering it, this illusion he had offered her, of forever. She didn’t know that he had no intention of actually following through with turning her, and she wouldn’t need to know that he wouldn’t. Immortality could be found in other ways, such as on a tombstone or an unmarked grave. But he would let her think that he was giving her that choice. It was one that many would die for. Literally.  
  
Her face tightened, her nostrils flared and her hands fisted tightly before she found the courage to look at his face. There was no thirst for power there, nor any desperation. There was temptation, yes, he could see that plainly. Her long look at his wrist had proven that much to him, that part of her liked the idea of immortality. But there were other emotions there too, some that surprised him. Frustration. Resignation. Anger. Defiance, even.  
  
“You think I’m just like them, don’t you?” she asked him quietly, her voice containing barely controlled calm. “You think I can be bought.” So his brother had offered the witches something in return for their servitude. He had suspected as much, and now he knew. He could work with that, if things went bad. But he could also work with her, this little witch from Chance Harbor.  
  
It was the disdain in her voice that gave him a better picture of who she was. It was almost as if the idea of being enticed had offended her, repelled her. Interesting, he thought. Her voice spoke of past pain, of sorrow, of grief, even as the tones of anger tried to drown it out. He hadn’t lived for a thousand years without learning how to dissect voices, how to disassemble people with a mere glance.  
  
He let his face assume a mask of polite interest, even as he felt what might have been pride and interest at her answer. She had a strength of will that he hadn’t seen before, not until he had pushed her. She was both suspicious and trusting, a contradiction that could bring her in close to her enemies, and then let her destroy them if she so chose. Of course, the opposite could also be true, but that was something he could provide assistance with, protect her from.  
  
The most important thing was, of course, the fact that his brother did not see her as a threat. Elijah had every intention of using that to his advantage, because he had dealt with witches before, and she was no weakling. She had potential: untapped and unused potential.  
  
Now the hard part would be convincing her to trust him, to work with him. If he could control the damage done from the inside, so much the better. Even as she stood up, throwing down five dollars to cover her half of the bill, even as he let her go, he knew he would just need time. Time, which he had in abundance.  
  
Why? Because she hadn’t said no.

 

 

 

ii.

The second time, he hadn’t asked her directly. Or at all.  
  
The mansion that his family chose to live in was large enough to match their expensive tastes, but lacked the people to make it seem less empty. Even with the witches that now lived there, the rooms echoed and lacked life, save for the areas where everyone convened. Everyone had rooms that were designated their own. Elijah had somehow claimed the library. Klaus had claimed the sunroom for his paintings. Rebekah had taken the rooms with the largest closets for her wardrobe. Kol tended to invade other people’s spaces rather than carve out his own.  
  
It was difficult not to overhear conversations when you were an Original, nor was it difficult to overhear conversations when the house was still nearly empty. No matter how quiet the voices, everything was heard, unless hidden behind four walls of burnt sage. But even that had a distinct smell that made it easy to track. There were no secrets in this house, save those living within the people who held onto them.  
  
He hadn’t meant to overhear this particular conversation, but he had.  
  
“I could probably get one for you too you know.” Faye’s voice, by the sound of it. He stopped short of the kitchen, just around the corner to listen. It was easy to see why Klaus, Rebekah and Kol liked Faye; a loose cannon, with quite a nasty magical punch. She was powerful enough, and loved to show it. Her weakness was her ambition, and it was through that that his brothers and sister had found a way to use her without her ever knowing it.  
  
“You don’t actually think he’s going to actually follow through on it, do you?” Exasperation colored Melissa’s voice. He could imagine her trying to keep calm, trying to reason things out with Faye. It was a place he knew very well, a position he often had to take up with his siblings.  
  
“Of course I do. He’s followed through on everything else up until now. This is the real deal, Melissa. Think about it. We’d have real power-”  
  
“Haven’t we learned from before what happens when you go looking for real power?” The words were sharp, cutting through the rest of Faye’s argument, letting it flutter onto the tiled kitchen floor. The silence that reigned for the next few seconds were heavy with tension, infused with a history he did not understand yet.  
  
“I’ve learned from my past mistakes, Melissa,” Faye grit out lowly. He could hear the beginning of anger in her voice, could see the length of the fuse that would lead to an imminent explosion. “I’m not that pathetic teenager anymore.”  
  
“I never said you were pathetic. You never were,” Melissa pointed out calmly. “All I’m saying is, do you actually know what you’re getting into?”  
  
“I thought you were here to help me.” The chair scraped against the floor as it moved back. “If I had known that you would be like this, I never would have called you for help. You’re supposed to be my best friend, to have my back.”  
  
“I am your best friend, and I’ve always had your back. But this....”  
  
“I’ll be strong, I’ll be beautiful, and I’ll never be that girl who got destroyed again. I don’t lose here. You can’t tell me that you haven’t thought about it either. About the idea of living forever. Of being better.”  
  
The pause was loaded, as if there was something about to go off. Faye’s voice had changed, from angry, to proud, to excited. He could hear the shift of cloth as Melissa moved, her fingers tracing shapes into the table. It was a long time before Melissa spoke, and when she did, her voice was quiet.  
  
“No, I haven’t.” A lie; he could hear it, plain as day. “And I’m not going to, because that’s reckless.” Nothing. No jump in pulse, just calm. “That, and I think we should go home.”  
  
There is the violent sound of glass breaking, and then eerie calm that accompanied the violent outbreak. Her heart rate spiked at the initial break, and then resumed its normal pace, as if nothing had happened. There had been no sharp intake of breath, no sound of any physical force. He would have known if there had been blood spilt in that kitchen; he could sense nothing out of the ordinary, save for that one jolted heartbeat.  
  
“There is nothing for for me in Chance Harbor that I haven’t found better here.”  
  
The sound of retreating footsteps echoed throughout the house as someone moved away from the kitchen. The front door opened and closed. He tilted his head; the whole house was silent, meaning that they were the only two here. He heard her sigh, heard the sound muffled through something (most likely her hands) before he even thought of approaching the kitchen.  
  
There was an empty cup and saucer there waiting for him when he finally did enter the kitchen. He eyed it carefully, taking note of its twin that lay cradled in her outstretched hands. A fragment of the saucer still remained under the counter, the other piece shattered still by what looked like the heel of a shoe. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened then. When he glanced over at her, Melissa’s eyes were sad as they gazed at the teacup, tracing lines with her fingers as if to seal away the cracks. She placed the cup down and breathed for a moment before looking at him.  
  
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes as she set the teacup down. “It would have been you,” she muttered, chuckling hollowly. Had she known he was listening? “I’m sorry for the mess. I can fix it.”  
  
“There’s no need,” he replied, even as she waved him off. Pointing her palms toward the ceiling, Melissa breathed, channeling power from some source he couldn’t see yet understand. As if the clock was rewinding, the pieces of the saucer flew back from their corners, the doubly shattered fragments reforming into their original piece before flying back toward the table. Taking the two halves into her hands, she pressed them together, a yellow light slowly erasing the cracks until it was whole again.  
  
It was an intimate thing, to watch a witch perform magic like this. Flashy shows of power were one thing, but to watch someone do something as simple as fix a broken piece of china, that implied a level of trust. He wasn’t sure if she understood what her actions had meant, but it seemed to him that on some level, she trusted him.  
  
There was this sense of familiarity between them now that had not been there when he had pulled her aside that day a month ago to see if she had been lured into his brother’s machinations by a false promise. They were joined together in watching the important people in their life self destruct, in picking up the pieces afterwards. They would not always be allies; there would come a time when she would cross a line to try to harm his siblings, and likewise, he might one day harm someone she cared about. But for right now, this truce suited the unspoken relationship that had been born between them, a nameless thing marked only by good sense and perhaps even fondness.  
  
She put the fixed saucer down, setting the teacup on top of it. It looked almost new, as if it had never been broken. “There,” she said, her fingers unconsciously tracing the wire thin scars on the porcelain. “It would be a shame to waste something like this.” There was a tenderness to her voice, from a place that he didn’t understand but could empathize with. She looked old in that moment, not as if she had lived for a long time, but as if she had experienced too much in too short of a time. There was that grief again, the grief that she hid well enough among others, but always seemed to linger if she was left alone.  
  
Was that why he sought her out? To chase away the grief, to see her smile? (He preferred her smile, the way the weight from her shoulders just seemed to lift.)  
  
With just a shake of her head, the sadness was gone. The smile returned to her face, her armor back in place as she turned back to him again. The smile at least was genuine this time; he could tell. She tilted her head toward the stove, where a lone kettle rested. “Tea?” It was an abrupt change in subject, but he could understand the meaning behind it. He was not Faye, and she would not put her troubles with Faye upon him.  
  
He smiled, and her own smile widened just enough for the weight to start to lift.

 

 

 

iii.

The third time, he hadn’t been sure how much of her answer was serious.  
  
One month had turned into three. His family had split up during that time, wandering off again to parts unknown. They would return, and eventually reunite, whether it be because of some sentiment or because something threatened them all as a family. That would never change, not now, not in the centuries to come.  
  
He had not planned on having a witch move in with him. It just happened.  
  
He almost hadn’t noticed at first. While the rest of his family and her fellow witches had dispersed, she had remained behind. At first, it had been to explain the sudden vacancy left behind by all those who had left. And then, arguably, it had been to clean up the mess that had been left behind. (The official excuse was there had been a horrible domestic dispute between his siblings, that had ended with everyone leaving as quickly as possible to avoid potential murder. The last part had been her contribution. He tended to refrain from adding it to any explanations he gave to the townspeople. If she was with him, she added the heavy implication. It seemed to get the point across and stop the questions.)  
  
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t left yet. The house was empty without anyone inhabiting it, and there was nothing to keep him there, other than making sure that if he or his siblings ever came back, it would not be a horrific mess. He supposed it had also been a good time to do some repairs and improvements, although he could have had the caretakers see to it.  
  
But then she had appeared in the foyer the morning after the unfortunate accident, gazing forlornly at the glass that still littered the ground, staring wide eyed the scorch marks on the walls. “Huh,” had been all she had said of the damage before she had turned to look at him. “So where are you planning on starting? I’d leave the glass stuff to me, by the way. Just leave it there.” And then she had turned and disappeared somewhere, leaving him there to just stare after her.  
  
They both started from opposite ends of the house and then worked their way inward. He could only have guessed that she meant to do most of the repairs using magic. He initially saw very little of her. Her heartbeat always said that she was doing something, told him where she was, but she would leave toward the end of the day to return to the room she was renting in town. She didn’t so much announce her departure as leave him notes around the house. Sometimes they asked him not to touch things. Other times, it was to tell him to just join her in the kitchen for tea because it wasn’t fair that by some strange draw of the evolutionary tree, he had the cleaning advantage in this situation.  
  
The only explanation he could give to why he listened to her was that she had a very.....blunt way of putting things. And he could appreciate her fresh, insightful attitude. So they had tea.  
  
Tea soon progressed to meals, which were really more for her than they were for him. But they discussed books, internet memes, current events, almost everything. She talked about her past sometimes, somethings she had done while she had been an undergraduate at college, her graduate studies. He talked about where he had traveled, quoted movies, and debated with her who would win in a fight between cavemen and astronauts. (They called the last one a draw.) It was nice, for once, to not have to make excuses for his brother and to just enjoy a simple conversation.  
  
“I think I’d be a pretty awful vampire,” she told him once over dinner at a restaurant he had taken her out to. “Statistically speaking, among all of my friends, I was always the first to have anything happen to them. Dying, being kidnapped, just weird things. Knowing me, my horrible luck would carry over and then you know,” she just shrugged, as if the rest didn’t need to be stated.  
  
He wondered if the wine had loosened her usual restraint, or if it had merely given her mind ideas.  
  
But she’d thought about it, he thought to himself as he fingered the wine glass stem. And for the first time, he wondered what she would be like, as a vampire. What would be enhanced by the transition? Her wit? Her kindness?  
  
He wondered.  
  


 

 

 

iv.

The fourth time, he had honestly asked her.

The bed was still warm from where she lay throughout the night, tired and weary after traveling for the better part of two days just to come home. He had lain around her, easing the tension in her muscles as his fingers traced patterns over her skin. When the sun arose the next morning, and she opened her eyes, she had kissed him.

The rest, as they say, was history.

In the aftermath of their coupling, months upon months of longing and distance erased, she lay there on her back, her fingers brushing through tufts of his hair, her nails scraping the skin at the nape of his neck. There was something about delayed gratification that his siblings had never understood. There was a reward for waiting, in staving off the hunger and yearning. When you finally got what you were owed, it was that much more satisfying to hold, to enjoy. He felt relaxed, sated, temporarily content. There would be room for improvement later; for now, he was allowing himself a small moment of peace, fully aware of how fragile it was.

He wasn’t exactly sure why he asked her as his lips pressed to her shoulder, soothing over the scars that he had made with his teeth before she had healed herself with her own magic, fueled by the energy released by their activities in bed.

Except maybe he did know why he asked. He could have done it right then, there in this bed that they had shared. He could be so gentle in doing it, a prick of a finger, then just enough pressure to send her to sleep, and then into death. He could have done it anytime he wanted to.

And that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to do it because he wanted to. He respected her, respected the choices she had made (even if he didn’t quite agree with them), and he cared about her. He wanted her to choose this, knew that this would never work if she didn’t want to. What was it that she had told him once? How both of their lives had been forever changed because someone had taken their choices away from them? She hadn’t had a choice in being born a witch, and he had never had a choice in becoming a vampire. Both of them were paying the price for something they had never wanted, yet were resigned to have.

He could give this choice to her, the same way he had given her everything else.

“Do I have to decide right now? Am I going to die if I don’t?” she had asked him, eyes sliding sideways to meet his. Her fingers had stilled in his hair, and for a moment, even her heart slowed, the gentle rhythm in his ear faltering. She wasn’t afraid, he would have known if she was. He pressed his cheek to her skin, his forehead skimming the her chin and letting her quiet breaths ruffle his hair.

“Of course not,” he reassured her, his arm loosening its hold over her torso. His thumb brushed against her hipbone and the sheets that had bunched up there, rubbing circles into her skin. The tension that had risen in her body at the question began to ease, and her fingers began to move in his hair again. It was progress, but it was not an answer.

The silenced that followed was deafening, almost painful. He had learned patience over the years, but sometimes, there was that degree of uncertainty he was unaccustomed to. Even after a thousand years, and centuries of masking his emotions, he could still feel underneath it all. Rage, grief, love….with one came all. All the women he had ever loved, truly loved, had been mysteries to him that he hadn’t managed to solve, and here was another moment of anticipation, of trepidation, where he wasn’t sure what lay beyond.

“Maybe someday,” she finally replied quietly, smoothing her palm over the side of his face. “But not now.”

She was leaving the door open for maybe, for yes. She wasn’t ready, not yet, and he could wait. He could content himself with that, with the fact that one day, she would say yes. This was different from the other answers she had given, because he was the cause for that change. He had given her a reason to consider spending the rest of eternity as a vampire, and a selfish part of him clung to that, because it meant that he would have more time with her.

He lowered his head as she craned her neck upwards, their lips meeting in the middle. She hadn’t said no, and it was the closest thing to an outright yes that he had heard in his entire time of knowing her.

 

 

 

v.

The fifth time, she almost said yes.

He couldn’t find her heartbeat, not in the way that he usually could. It was constantly changing, as if her own heart was fighting a battle separate from her body. The rest of the world was falling away, burning as he passed through woods that he had traversed in a distant memory. There were moments when he could not hear her heart at all, and that terrified him in ways that the idea of his siblings being gone forever never could. Her blood in his veins, her magic still lingering on his skin; they were linked together in their own unique way. It was the only way he kept himself moving, how he knew she was still alive, and how he knew that she needed him.  
  
He found her right before a break in the treeline. His eyes told him there had been a battle here, and the footsteps that continued on without her indicated that her allies had managed to get away. The price she had been willing to pay for that had been her life, he knew. Melissa was self-sacrificing in that way, frustratingly. (Her life mattered to him. That part he could no longer deny.) The ashes and corpses have formed arcs in the ground, waves upon waves knocked down, burned. He smelled the remnants of iron, of blood as it soaked into the ground. Witch hunters, then, enough of them to constitute an army. His worry deepened. It had been many years since a witch hunt this large had been gathered; witches were few then, and fewer still now. This attack stank of deception and hidden agendas, but none he could focus on now.  
  
There were some still alive, injured enough prevent them from trying anything else without help. He stepped over these living corpses, drawn toward the lone figure whose erratic heartbeat drew him here.  
  
Her chest was barely rising with the breath fighting to get into her lungs. Her face was a far cry from the one he had grown to read. He could smell death on her, her normal lovely mocha skin pale, save for the thin river of blood coming out of her nose. His senses could feel the blood leaving her body in other places, pooling near her brain, flooding her lungs, killing her from the inside. Her heart was still beating, just barely, and there was a very big part of him that just wanted to end her suffering, to sink his fangs into her neck and drink whatever was left of her, because she was dying anyways.  
  
But he hadn’t survived for nearly a thousand years without learning some degree of self control.  
  
Pushing his predatory instincts away, he bit cleanly into his wrist, letting his free hand gently brace her neck as he lifted her head to the pool of blood that had gathered there. She would not be happy with the way things had turned out when she awoke, was fully conscious. She had resisted taking any of his blood for so long, always insisted on refusing. She did not want him to be responsible for her death, if it came to that. Always considerate, his witch, to the point of pain. He could forgive himself for this transgression if she lived. She had to live.  
  
She began to stir when he sensed his blood working on her body, healing the torn rifts in her blood vessels, starting to regenerate torn patches of skin. Slowly, she returned to life, drinking all the while. She did not resist, and perhaps she did not have the ability to, she had lost so much blood. But her heart began to stabilize, evening out slowly into an almost familiar rhythm, then maintaining it. His lungs released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, even as he shifted to hold her more securely. She would need most of his strength to make it through tonight.  
  
She drank deeply as soon as she could find the strength to do so, her previous resistance to partaking in vampire blood gone in exchange for self-preservation. He let her, let himself get swept away in the feeling of giving, in letting himself become a part of her. He didn’t need to tell her that it was safe; she knew, the same way she knew him by touch, by feel.  
  
“If you had done it,” she would tell him later, tired and drifting off to sleep. “I would have been alright with it. As long as it had been you.”  
  
For the time being, he stood guard over her as her body began to slowly heal itself, exhausted by the massive amount of magic that she had to have used to reach this point. He stood guard and held her, thankful that she was alive.

 

 

 

vi.

In the end, it hadn't mattered.  
  
Her eyes were wide with fear even as he knew she was trying to calm her beating heart. She knew that it cost her, this loss of control and the loss of rational thought. She had prided herself on her ability to think clearly, better than she had in years past. Here, he knew her to be angry at herself, for her inability to see this coming, to protect herself. Any move either of them made at this juncture would be crucial, and might be their last. Klaus knew he had the upper hand here, witch or no witch.  
  
Still, even as she looked at him, he could see her eyes change. She was afraid, he could feel it radiating off of her in waves. But now, it was not fear for herself; it was fear for him, fear for her friends. It was a stupid sentiment to have in that moment, but he wouldn’t have felt the way he did if she had felt any other way. There was also resignation, as if she knew how this story would end before he did.  
  
He wanted to save her. He wanted nothing else but to hold her in his arms again, to mark her and protect her and be with her. But there was no choice in what Klaus had demanded of him. Family had always come first, would always be first, and this test of loyalty was the hardest thing he had ever done.  
  
Klaus snapped her neck even as she whispered three words. I forgive you.  
  
He hadn’t realized what she had meant then. He had thought it was forgiveness for being unable to save her, for not allowing her to live. There was no need for her death, he thought to himself later in his bedroom. For centuries, his family had always come first; no one, not even Melissa, had shaken that pillar of his being. But now Melissa was gone, without any hope of-  
  
The memory rose unbidden, like the moon just below the treeline outside of his window. The flush of her skin as she had sprawled beneath him, the way her heart had pounded for his ears alone. He remembers her moans as he had tapped out a rhythm between her thighs with his tongue, her gentle sloping curves under his hands.  
  
He remembers the mark of her teeth on his shoulder where she had bitten him in her abandon as she came, pulling him behind her.  
  
He remembers, and in his heart, he hopes.


End file.
